The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Thermal characteristics of packaged semiconductor devices have been a design issue with respect to device performance and reliability. However, controlling thermal characteristics of packaged devices has been problematic due to the lack of space available to implement thermal conductivity solutions in an efficient manner. One conventional technique for controlling the thermal characteristics in Plastic Grid Ball Array (PBGA) packages includes implementing a heat spreading structure by securing a piece of metal to the lead frame to draw heat away from the device at a higher rate than the rate provided by the package molding. Unfortunately, most packaging schemes cannot accommodate such a design.